American Crude: There Will Be Blood, Take 2

I caught the latest Paul Thomas Anderson debacle at a press screening on November 28, well before the critical drum circle had risen to its current “Burning Man” pitch. In the clear light of late autumn drizzle, There Will Be Blood appeared to be no more and no less than what it truly is: a bomb, and an overwrought one at that. It may be a tonier work than the detestable Boogie Nights, but Anderson’s underlying crudeness and his overkill “sensibility” haven’t evolved an iota. (Yes, Virginia, I can hear the jihadists singing in the comments section already.) A friend who hated the movie as much as I did asked afterwards, as we dodged rain in the Oaktree Cinema parking lot, “Did that amount to anything beyond a couple of games of one-upmanship?” I confessed I hadn’t thought of Blood in those terms. Still, her question perfectly encapsulated the anorexic one-dimensionality of the picture, and I had to agree.

First things first: I adore Daniel Day-Lewis. Always have. And while it might be nice to hitch my RV to the Dodge pick-up truck of hosannas greeting his Blood work, I must counter that Day-Lewis, in rendering the Texas-for-Central California scenery to mucilaginous mush, turns in the worst performance of his career to date. Granted, Scorsese-phobe that I am, I haven’t subjected myself to Gangs of New York, yet I fail to see how it could be ghastlier than the one-note, one-scale Sean Connery brogue that Day-Lewis affects as wildcatting oilman Daniel Plainview, a frontier charlatan gobbling up all available land, circa the early 1900s, in order to drill, to uglify the landscape and thus line his pockets with filthy lucre.

Second: Anderson remains as naïve as ever about big business. (By extension, so must the uncritical critics who are lauding/anointing this trash—anointing it with oil?—as the best film of the year.) Blood has two or three set-pieces devoted to the tycoon’s flamboyant lack of scruples, the most noteworthy and memorable being a Sunday prayer meeting in which Plainview falsely converts to Christianity in order to secure a land deal. I have to ask what is so insightful or novel about showing us that a businessman will say or do anything to get what he wants. Anderson serves up this chestnut of predictability (i.e. espousing religion to fleece the faithful) as if it were nouvelle cuisine, an exotic dish we’d never tasted, instead of trite gruel worth spitting in the screen’s direction.

Third: I’m quite fond of Paul Dano, although, no, I haven’t seen Little Miss Sunshine and don’t intend to. Dano left indelible impressions both in Fast Food Nation, an uneven yet worthwhile film, and in The Ballad of Jack and Rose, a sublime, almost completely unheralded masterpiece from Rebecca Miller. In Ballad, Dano and Day-Lewis played adversaries, as they do in There Will Be Blood. The antagonism between them in Miller’s movie rang true: Dano’s slacker punk Thaddeus deflowered Jack’s teenage daughter Rose (an exquisite Camilla Belle); you could feel, perhaps share in, Jack’s rage. When he struck Thaddeus, the violence grew organically out of the situation. Dano and Day-Lewis, despite the vast differences in their experience, their training, their ages, were believable, perfectly natural with each other. In Anderson’s movie, since nothing makes a damn bit of sense anyway, and as Dano is miscast, and therefore not remotely convincing, as an evangelist, the conflict between the caricatures they’re asked to play feels like some sort of dubious parlor game. More on that anon. Suffice to say, I had looked forward to seeing Dano in an extended role, in a “grown-up” part, as opposed to his usual now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t, anti-establishment young curmudgeons. But because the writing is so flat, so unsurprising, and because all Anderson as a director knows how to do with actors is to get them to be loud or louder, Dano flails around discombobulatedly. He’s never disgraceful, exactly—he just can’t inhabit the skin of a backwoods preacher. (Then again, Anderson has conceived the role so disingenuously, so shallowly, that even an actor with a few more rabbits in his hat would be unlikely to stoke a flame into this emberless fire.)

Dano, nonetheless, relishes playing Eli Sunday; that’s obvious enough when Plainview smacks Eli around in a dirty puddle, sullying him with black goop, and hours later Eli remains caked with dried mud whilst seated at his family dinner table—perhaps the lessons absorbed from his humiliation will lend his complexion a rosy glow. Just because Dano relishes the challenge of the role, however, doesn’t mean he’s up to it. Circling his clapboard pulpit, Dano’s Eli lacks the charismatic qualities of a true, faith healing huckster. Dano reads his lines tentatively in the early scenes, as if from cue cards, and although the actor livens up as the action becomes more outré, a scene in which the black-garbed Eli “casts out demons” from an elderly villager’s arthritic hands doesn’t transcend the meaningless exorcism theatrics. (Again, bad direction.) Furthermore, Eli’s short hair, while suitable to the time and place, isn’t particularly flattering; it emphasizes the moon-shape of Dano’s face, his brutal nose, the odd sheen of his cheekbones.

There are, in this 158-minute film, a few effects, mainly photographic, that go right: a white cloud overhead reflected in a pool of oil; a neat, economical cut of a boy and girl playing outdoors, then standing at an altar, as young adults, exchanging their vows. In a prologue of Plainview’s solo silver-mining expeditions, Anderson and his cinematographer Robert Elswit evoke a sense of the physical difficulty, the loneliness, the extremism of the pursuit. Down in the pit, a bearded, grimy Plainview hacks away at a rock wall. When he emerges above ground, into brightest day, it is into sunlight as harsh and punishing as the dark inside the earth.

Minor virtues, welcome as they are, cannot begin to salvage There Will Be Blood. Anderson directs nearly each shot of the baked brown earth, the dusty rubble of the landscape, as if staging a requiem, which may account for his overuse of a florid, funereal score by Jonny Greenwood. Greenwood, the guitarist for Radiohead, writes music as if he learned everything he knows about composing by taking a brickbat to hornets’ nests. Endless pizzicato, in other words, complete with slide-down-to-the-pit-of-your-stomach glissandi for a crazed string quartet. What’s worse, Anderson rosins up the soundtrack with this horror bowing even when there’s no connection between it and the images on screen. (The awful sounds match the Gothic typeface Anderson insists on for title credits, but that’s all.) Of course, Anderson wants us to be prepared, well in advance, for the inevitable. When rickety 1902 oil-derricking equipment collapses, two men are buried alive in the well of a gusher, an event that finds the director still slathering it on, as in his days of Boogie Nights, lingering over the icky misfortunes of the newly dead.

I cannot thoroughly go into what makes this film such a stale milk-dud without revealing the ending. So herewith you have one of the ever-popular “spoiler alerts.” After decades of conniving, wheeling, dealing, and stealing, Plainview ends up as an old, drunk, embittered businessman, a dispenser of gratuitous cruelty who, having attained every material good, in reality has nothing. He’s empty inside. What a revelation! (Perhaps here Anderson shows steadfast faith to his source material, Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil! Be that as it may, the director has found no angle to “make it new.”)

So wealthy has Plainview become that he’s had a bowling alley installed within the bowels of his impressively gloomy mansion, and it is here that Blood’s dreadful, self-consciously “iconoclastic” finale unfurls. Plainview and his much younger, physically smaller enemy Eli Sunday reunite in what amounts to the cinematic equivalent of hoisting a jackhammer to swat at a fly. The men indulge in a mind game, of which Plainview has an easy victory, and then arrives the thwacked-by-bowling-balls climax, wherein Plainview torments Eli from lane to lane before beating the evangelist face down into a pool of blood, the “holy” man’s head bashed with a nine-pin. A servant, oblivious to the corpse on the floor, motions to remove Plainview’s dinner plate: “Are you finished, sir?” “Yes, I’m finished,” quacks Day-Lewis. Cue the third movement from the Brahms Violin Concerto (its resplendent orchestral sweep defamed to the level of a punch line) to accompany the closing credits. The end!

It’s a tacky, indefensibly stupid conclusion to an aggressively pointless film. And in it, Anderson nakedly reaches for mythmaking, for old Hollywood (i.e. the 1970s), for what Pauline Kael might have termed the visceral poetry of pulp. Only it’s a sham. Anderson wants us to applaud his swashbuckling bravado, yet how can we when it isn’t a fair match? It’s redundant for Plainview to kill Eli. There’s no sting in seeing the faith healer destroyed because he was never a threat, merely an annoyance. It’s a cartoon version of the Chinatown finale, but instead of being shaken by the ruthlessness of evil, Anderson’s flippant, ironic-celebratory undercurrent means we’re supposed to feel triumphant. Which I suppose is how a schizophrenic or a bully—or a smug hipster—thinks a movie should end. Anderson dedicates There Will Be Blood to the memory of the late Robert Altman who, in death, now conveniently serves as the patron saint for phonies everywhere. Much more so than Altman, Anderson’s studied pose here reminded me of what I wrote in 2004 on seeing another atrocious film, David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees. Somewhere, Russell had been quoted as saying, “I think the most daring thing about [Huckabees] in a way is its optimism.” Between Russell’s so-called optimism and Charlie Kaufman’s pessimism, it now bears repeating, we are stuck with a cinema of absolute zero, the illogical regression of which moves the medium ever closer to a series of blank screens. Three years later, I take the stunning moral and aesthetic failure of There Will Be Blood (as well as the bowling ball subtlety of the praise that surrounds it) to be dismal proof of precisely that.

House contributor N.P. Thompson writes about film for Willamette Week and Northwest Asian Weekly.

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This "review" is a joke, right? Because the two paragraphs I was able to stomach is the work of someone who likes to dislike cinema, has no reliable sense of what's glorious or deplorable, and who has way too much time on his hands.Posted by Anonymous on 2008-06-21 07:05:00

very interesting to read such a different opinion to the general one about this film. Very refreshing too. I for one did not like or dislike the film - but rather came out of it with that 'meh' kind of feeling. i will no doubt watch it again, but im in no rush to. personally, i preferred the assasination of jesse james, feeling that it evoked more wrought emotion that TWBB. i think, thats once again with filmmakers like PTA the 'critics' all fall into the emperors new clothes syndrome and furthermore echo ed nortons statement that 'film critics are the most unqualified people in the world'Posted by AK on 2008-04-13 14:03:00

didn't you get that TWBB is an allegory of the current admnistration's failure to act with humanity?

One doesn't have to think very long or hard to see that the issues raised in this movie about the use of false prophets,abandonment of family,"gettin' religion", assassinating 'brothers", and ultimately killing religion in the pursuit of riches by oilmen applies directly to taday's events.

In case you didn't get it: these things are badPosted by Anonymous on 2008-02-05 16:45:00

You're sick of the praise, so you've decided to take the opposite opinion. It's a simple as that, isn't it dear? You haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine? Then you're an unqualified idiot.Posted by mercurygirl on 2008-01-30 16:43:00

I went to see this ugly, dimwitted film here in LA today after hearing that so many critics named it the best of the year. Reading the results of the Village Voice poll of film critics turned out to be a big waste of time, except that I learned that NP was the only critic that mentioned Delirious, which I liked a lot. I then found NP's trenchant review of Blood, for which I am very grateful. It's right on target. The comments of some readers to the effect that the review is not well written or not well argued are loopy. It's one of the best film reviews I've read. Thanks NP.Posted by VolkoffLA on 2008-01-07 03:46:00

While breezing past your childish and truly inept review of There Will be Blood, I came across a line that made aspersions towards Paul Dano's features:

"Furthermore, Eli's short hair, while suitable to the time and place, isn't particularly flattering; it emphasizes the moon-shape of Dano's face, his brutal nose, the odd sheen of his cheekbones."

Aside from your mediocre writing style you've gone so far as to insult a person for how they look. Not being of an overly sensitive nature myself I was indeed a little shocked and disturbed that you used a castmember's appearance as a valid criticism for what was otherwise a well made if not truly excellent film.

I understand and respect your opinion that you did not enjoy the film as much as others but you should really watch what you say and how you say it. If you choose to be one of those polemic/ blaze of glory/ 'fuck the zeitgeist' film critics, do so some place else.Posted by Anonymous on 2008-01-01 07:55:00

I love many of them, and also loathe many of them.

Loving? Loathing? You? Uh......in bizarro world, sir. Seriously, the polar opposite of that interesting character N.P., rating almost every movie watched a neutral "not that bad" three stars. >_> Not often is it give or take half.

One need not spend more than five seconds on your site (I didn't) to realize that and promptly give up on it, I'm afraid.Posted by Anonymous on 2007-12-31 01:47:00

Sars: What I can tell you is that I'd be seeing the obviously awesome "The Discreet Charm Of The Burt-goisie" opening weekend.

Save me an aisle seat for that, and I'll buy us Un Chien Chaud and That Obscure Object of Diet Coke.

N.P., as the proud, founding member of the House Next Door Philistine Society (HNDPS), allow me to welcome you into our ranks. Your membership includes some Visine for reducing redness from the numerous times your eyes will roll as the peanut gallery hammers nails into your cross over some director for whom they have a boner. You'll also receive a picture of Shadow Henderson, who continues to provide the definitive answer to the righteous here at the House. Welcome!Posted by odienator on 2007-12-31 00:17:00

I haven't yet seen TWBB so can't comment upon it, and I did make it clear about my, negative, thoughts on N.P. in an earlier post, but does it excuse the utter dreck he's thrown up onto screens previously? never been able to stand the fellow and his faux-monumental constructions composed of fate and "coincidence" and heavy handed metaphors and all that he thinks signifies grand meaning. P.U. Past films have truly rubbed this viewer the wrong way so he's not yet ready to embrace the idea of a PTA "masterpiece". His films have always seemed like shit he thinks looks impressive on the page, and as individual shots or scenes (and this is to himself), but add up to a whole that is trying desperatley to signify importance and profundity and just come off as hackneyed, overwrought, dumb (because of striving for something which it thinks is great) excercises. I don't like being hit over the head with cliches. And minor moments that add up to "grand" insight, which isn't that at all but elementary adolescent ideas of what insight is. Oh well.

As per the comments on, well, he's a Sandler fan, well I'd say Anger Management was a far better version of Punch Drunk Love and think the movies he himself has control over, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Little Nicky, are pretty good, generally quite funny. That isn't to mention the knee-jerk elitism of said comment.Posted by J. Green on 2007-12-29 07:27:00

"Does anybody think that Bunuel would have made a movie starring Burt Reynolds?"

I can't really speak to whether he would have. What I can tell you is that I'd be seeing the obviously awesome "The Discreet Charm Of The Burt-goisie" opening weekend.Posted by Sars on 2007-12-28 20:10:00

"the detestable Boogie Nights"

Thank you for allowing me to calibrate my opinion of your critical faculties so early.Posted by Nick on 2007-12-28 19:08:00

As a 62 year old geezer, I remember the movies of my misspent youth by Godard, Antonioni, Bergman, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Kubrick, Hitchcock and Bunuel. When you have seen them, you cannot but fail to be impressed by the movies of 2007.

There's a really annoying assumption here that most of us working criticis must be cinema-illiterate (OK, a lot are, but not the ones hanging around here). If one "cannot" - literally does not have a choice in the matter - "be impressed by the movies of 2007," why bother? You might as well be Rex Reed, moaning about the lost virtues of classicism. Yeah, I've seen those films too, and guess what? I love many of them, and also loathe many of them. That's how taste works.

I won't attack a fellow House blogger, I guess, so I'll get Mr. Thompson's back on one thing: he's perfectly within his rights not to watch Little Miss Sunshine, a movie I refused to touch as well. If you have an advance guard of critics who act as a reliable barometer for what to expect and you've noticed a consistent overlap in verdicts in the past, then - like me - after a while you stop feeling the need to personally verify every fiasco. I watch enough crap professionally as it is without feeling the need to take in more when I'm not being paid.Posted by Vadim on 2007-12-28 18:29:00

If this site is still doing "5 for the day," then perhaps an "inappropriate actor-director pairings that worked" would be a good one. Also, I always found Anderson's affection for Sandler kind of endearing. Cinephiles often have weird funny bones. When he actually used Sandler, however, he depended on the subtext of the man's comedy, the constant threat of violence beneath his jokes. And the loud score couldn't have been more appropriate to Punch-Drunk Love (I haven't seen TWBB yet). The entire movie is about how love creates harmony between two people in an otherwise dissonant world. I found two people playing a harmonium, after 90 minutes of Brion's intentionally difficult music, to be quite moving.

JoelPosted by Anonymous on 2007-12-28 15:12:00

Does anybody think that Bunuel would have made a movie starring Burt Reynolds?

Right on, and furthermore, does anyone think Ingmar Bergman would make a movie starring Elliott Gould? Oh....wait.Posted by Andrew on 2007-12-28 05:41:00

"Does anybody think that Bunuel would have made a movie starring Burt Reynolds?" Hmm, lemme think about that. Well, he made a movie starring Jorge Negrete, the top Mexican crooner of the 1940s. And he made three movies starring Sylvia Pinal, a former ingenue who was married to his producer. And one movie costarring inexpressive pretty boy Jean Sorel. There's probably more. But I'd say on the balance of the evidence, Louis, absolutely. Hope this helps.Posted by glenn kenny on 2007-12-28 05:19:00

I really don't get how such deeply flawed films as "No Country for Old Men", "There Will be Blood" and "Atonement" garner such over-the-top accolades. As a 62 year old geezer, I remember the movies of my misspent youth by Godard, Antonioni, Bergman, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Kubrick, Hitchcock and Bunuel. When you have seen them, you cannot but fail to be impressed by the movies of 2007. I also wonder after reading Armond White's interview here whether there is something fishy going on. Do people get paid off to rave about something so lame as "There Will be Blood"? The fact that its director is a big Adam Sandler fan should set off alarms. Does anybody think that Bunuel would have made a movie starring Burt Reynolds? Something is really fucked up here.Posted by Louis Proyect on 2007-12-28 02:20:00

Well, unlike Steven, my problem is most certainly one of past bad acts. When someone hates almost everything, including a bunch of films that I and a vast majority of intelligent, well-regarded critics (including several on this very site) like quite a bit, it's a little difficult to take his overwhelmingly negative reviews with anything less than a truck of salt. That's especially the case when that reviewer makes spiteful claims about people who could possibly like the movie he's reviewing. Again, I just don't feel like it's worth engaging in a conversation with N.P. Thompson. I've never really felt that way about a reviewer whose work has been hosted on this site.

To get this back to discussion of the film (which, again, I haven't seen but eagerly anticipate), I have some trouble with the arguments in this thread that reviewers should blame Sinclair instead of Anderson. Adaptation is an artistic choice like any other; if PTA chose to portray those flawed elements as they appear in the novel he should be chastised for it just as he would be for problematic editing.Posted by Ty Keenan on 2007-12-28 01:59:00

Nice review. I thought the trailer made it pretty obvious this film wasn't going to be worth watching. Dano looks like an utter joke in this role, directed all wrong for an adversary worthy of even a slumming Day-Lewis. You want savage criticism? I don't happen to think Citizen Kane is worth watching even once, either.

When is Anderson going to knuckle down and find the material to sustain a film that doesn't revolve around an ensemble cast? Is he that hapless? He's already struck out with Hard Eight and Punch-Drunk Love.Posted by Anonymous on 2007-12-28 01:43:00

Sars, this is the first piece I've written by Thompson and have no ties to this site, thus whether he disagrees with the "boss" is a moot point in my case. The problem I had with this piece is that Thompson clearly decided before watching the movie what he was going to feel about it and rips the movie apart for the sole reason to counter the critical consensus.

There is an intelligent discussion to be had on this movie whether you liked it or not. But this piece was simple-minded and revealed the author simply had it in for Anderson and this movie from the beginning. He clearly had no trouble passing judgment on several movies he didn't even bother to see.

When I read a piece like this, it doesn't make me think much about the movie as much as the author's motivations for writing it.Posted by Steven Santos on 2007-12-28 01:04:00

"The point is not to be insightful or novel â€“ the film's based on a book from 1927 after all! â€“ but to visualize the material in the best possible way."

One would hope that the best possible visualization of any material includes some novelty and/or insight, and avoids gotcha cliches like the one Thompson describes in the final scene. I'm not a fan of Anderson's work, and in my view, this review does a solid job of explaining why that is generally: he's unable to fill in holes in the written material; he leans too hard on the soundtrack to do some of the work for him; he's a show-off visually at the expense of story pacing (see: the "Sister Christian" scene in "Boogie Nights").

Could Thompson stand to have nailed down his arguments with more detail? Yes. But the imperious how-dare-you-sir reaction he's receiving seems like it might have more to do with past bad acts--or that he had the temerity to disagree with the boss.

As for "atrociously written"...where I'm from, producing a mental image of Jonny Greenwood bludgeoning a hornets' nest is a good day's work, but suit yourselves.Posted by Sars on 2007-12-28 00:27:00

You could - in terms of Ebertian language - hate hate hate hate hate this movie, but I think that hate needs to be channeled into something a bit more constructive than what I'm getting out of this piece. As far as prose goes, it's very well written, but the basic approach of it doesn't seem to be an analysis of what it does wrong and why, but simply what it does (with the outright assumption that it's wrong to begin with). That may not be what was being sought after in this piece, but it's what I felt to be wanting.

I guess it doesn't help that I really like There Will Be Blood. Or Magnolia. Or Adaptation. So maybe we're just on totally different pages.Posted by rob humanick on 2007-12-27 23:46:00

"...It may be a tonier work than the detestable Boogie Nights..."

Thanks for putting this line near the top of the review, because it saved me the trouble of reading the rest of the review or anything else this reviewer has to say.

Best,

JonPosted by Jon on 2007-12-27 23:30:00

For the record, this film deviates quite a bit from 'OIL!, especially towards the conclusion. I think N.P's problem is with Anderson more than Upton.Posted by Anonymous on 2007-12-27 23:27:00

I don't doubt that N.P. didn't like this film, just as I don't doubt that he didn't like all the other ones he's savaged on his site and in other publications. I'm perfectly willing to accept that someone doesn't like a work of art so long as he/she is willing to consider what that work might be doing and how someone could possibly like it. My issue with Thompson is that he summarily dismisses almost everything he reviews and gives little justification other than fallback descriptors like "pointless" and vague statements about hipsters. In contrast, MZS makes it clear that you can somehow dislike this movie while still accepting that it's in some way important.

My point is this: if we're reading/writing criticism to create a forum for discussion, then N.P. Thompson's reviews do little to expand that space--much more often than not, they close it.Posted by Ty Keenan on 2007-12-27 23:20:00

Glad to see my "second opinionâ€ still stings Josh. However, I have to agree that this review is a bit shallow, especially compared to Matt's opus.

"Did that amount to anything beyond a couple of games of one-upmanship?â€

What's wrong with games of one-upmanship? Shakespeare's greatest dramas are games of one-upmanship.

"I have to ask what is so insightful or novel about showing us that a businessman will say or do anything to get what he wants.â€

The point is not to be insightful or novel â€“ the film's based on a book from 1927 after all! â€“ but to visualize the material in the best possible way. You have a problem with Upton Sinclair, not Anderson.

"Furthermore, Eli's short hair, while suitable to the time and place, isn't particularly flattering.â€

The film has now been reduced to a beauty contest.

"Of course, Anderson wants us to be prepared, well in advance, for the inevitable.â€

It's called foreshadowing.Posted by Lauren Wissot on 2007-12-27 22:05:00

I'll first say that I wasn't a huge fan of the film, either, so this isn't meant to simply defend the film...but I thought this piece was atrociously written. The editors of The House Next Door need to be a little more discriminating in their selections if they want to keep up to the mark of quality they obviously intend. This is second only to that horrible I'm Not There "second opinion" by Lauren Wissot in its lack of insight. On second thought it's worse cause it's also smug and self-satisfied. I learned nothing from this review.Posted by josh on 2007-12-27 20:18:00

Hmmm... well, I haven't seen it yet myself but I'm always a little suspicious of writers who speak in absolutes, i.e., people who like this don't know movies; the good reviews for this prove people are dumb; etc. You of course did not say those words, I'm referring to the tone of the piece.

Now I can fully understand not liking any movie. There are movies where I seem to be the only one who doesn't like them. And certainly Magnolia & Boogie Nights wear their film homages on their sleeves but I still enjoyed them and may - may - enjoy this. Or I may hate it. So I see Ty and Steven's points but I also understand this movie may indeed be an overblown bloated whale (and probably wouldn't be too surprised if it was). I just think you need to express it with better argumentation and less vitriol, that's all.

Now what really caught my attention with your review was this line - "I'm quite fond of Paul Dano, although, no, I haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine and don't intend to." Well I have seen it and found it cliche filled and mechanically mediocre. So in my opinion you're probably not missing anything. But I'm surprised to see any movie lover, critic, blogger refuse to see a movie - any movie. If there's a movie on cable that I missed in the theatres and it got 3% on Rotten Tomatoes - I'll watch it. I think watching the best, the worst and everything in between helps anyone understand the language of film better. Even if it's a stinker, you're learning more of what doesn't work and why.

And if a movie receives big box office or good notices or awards nominations then many people are seeing something (whether it be Transformers or The Queen) and I want to understand the situation myself. The only way to do so is to see the movie. All the criteria above applied to Little Miss Sunshine so I saw it. I found all the characters underwent life changing catharthises within hours of each other on a three day road trip that strained credulity. I found the script clever and trite and filled with the obvious (the silent son will speak, the father will face reality with his book prospects, and so on). But I found it well-acted all around and crisply paced. Thus I concluded that if you wrap up inoffensive and unchallenging cliche in a nice package with likable, taltented actors you will succeed. I didn't like it, but I understand the success with casual filmgoers and I'm glad I saw it for that understanding. I am still a bit perplexed by its success with respected film critics but thinking about something like that is one of the many pleasures that comes from seeing all movies.

So N.P. Get out there. See 'em all. I've learned as much if not more from the bad movies than I have from the good ones.Posted by Jonathan Lapper on 2007-12-27 15:37:00

I just saw this movie last night and, after reading Matt's review, found this one to be childish and unenlightening in comparison. It's not just that I didn't agree with you, but it failed to ever go beyond "I hate Paul Thomas Anderson! I hate Paul Thomas Anderson!".

This is an Armond White special, declaring hate, not backing up a single argument, suggesting those who loved the movie are fools, and failing to make me think on any level. As Ty says above, this isn't interesting to read and is overly simplistic.Posted by Steven Santos on 2007-12-27 14:21:00

I have not yet seen this movie and won't comment on the specifics of this review, but I'd really appreciate it if the powers that be stopped associating with someone who finds nothing worthwhile in 80% (and maybe more) of the movies he watches. His reviews are simply not interesting to read.Posted by Ty Keenan on 2007-12-27 07:56:00